Feature Articles

José Rodriguez, a chemist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and an adjunct professor in the departments of Chemistry and Materials Science and Chemical Engineering at Stony Brook University, has been named a 2021 Fellow of the American Vacuum Society (AVS). The award recognizes Rodriguez for his contributions in the field of catalysis.

This story, profiling theoretical physicist Jennifer Rittenhouse West, is a pilot project conceived by the Software Working Group of the EIC User Group to become part of a series of profiles of future users of the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC). The EIC is a next-generation nuclear physics research facility being built at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory in partnership with DOE’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility and collaborators around the world.

A team of atmospheric scientists from around the nation is descending on the Houston, Texas, area for the next 14 months to seek answers to a vexing question: Do tiny specks of soot, dust, smoke, and other particles suspended in Earth’s atmosphere help determine the severity of thunderstorms? The knowledge gained may make weather forecasts more accurate and provide crucial data for improving predictions about how aerosols may affect Earth’s future climate. It will also give scientists a unique opportunity to explore the effects of industry, vehicle emissions, and the built environment on weather and climate.

Atmospheric scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have deployed a unique method of collecting climate data in cities, aiming to address infrastructure and energy needs across the Nation. Rather than relying on stationary instruments, researchers at Brookhaven’s Center for Multiscale Applied Sensing (CMAS) have integrated sophisticated research tools into a pickup truck, creating a mobile observatory that captures precise, local data on wind, temperature, rain, and clouds across entire cities.

Physicists from the STAR Collaboration of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider presented long-awaited results from a "blind analysis" of how the strength of the magnetic field generated in certain collisions affects the particles streaming out. The experiment was designed to look for evidence of a predicted physics phenomenon known as the "chiral magnetic effect." It didn't come out as initially predicted.